The criminal justice system enforces and administers the Criminal Code of Canada. According to Schneider (2007), Canadians have witnessed some important changes in the criminal justice system. Generally, at the national and provincial levels, violent acts perpetrated against women are seen as crimes against the state rather than as a private matter. This commitment saw the creation of pro-charging policies for spousal violence in the 1980s, which removed the burden of the decision to lay a charge away from the survivor and onto the police (Statistics Canada, 2013). The creation and growth of domestic violence courts was another notable specialized response to spousal violence (Johnson, 2006). Legislative changes have also been introduced to address specific types of crimes where women are disproportionately abused. Criminal Code amendments have included the repeal of the offence of rape and the creation of sexual assault offences in 1983, and the introduction of the offence of criminal harassment in 1993 (Statistics Canada, 2013). The above procedural and legislative institutional changes have accompanied an emergence of formal support services for persons victimized by violent crime, notably shelters for abused women and sexual assault centers (Johnson & Dawson, 2011).
Despite the changes in responses to IPV, women who suffer violent victimization are largely not willing to report to the legal system or formal sources of support for help (Statistics Canada, 2016). Past research reveals that survivors may only be willing to approach the criminal justice system for support and protection when the abuse becomes severe in nature (see, for example, Bonomi, Holt, Martin & Thompson, 2006; Hoyle & Sanders, 2000). A more recent study by Meyer (2011), identified the most common form of formal help-seeking as talking to the police, which became increasingly important once the abuse started to escalate in frequency and severity. Meyer’s study revealed that 44.8 percent of the survivors indicated calling the police or presenting themselves to a police station in person on one or more occasions throughout the abusive relationship. Likewise, some survivors also indicated they had contact with the police after the police had been called by a third party, usually a neighbor (Meyer, 2011). Almost half of the survivors (44.8%) said they had no contact with the police in relation to IPV while a little more than half (51.7%) had no IPV-related court contact during or after the abusive relationship. Similarly, less than half (34.5%) had contact with a court as part of a Domestic Violence Order (DVO) application or criminal proceedings against the abusive partner that were initiated during the abusive relationship, while 13.8% did not apply for a DVO until they tried to separate permanently (Ibid).
Meyer (2011) further adds that while the observed help-seeking rates from the criminal justice system as a response to IPV are significantly higher than the 15% to 25% generally observed in random national samples, they are comparable to rates observed in other small- and large-scale high risk samples accessed through survivors services, emergency departments, or the police. These observations indicate that by the time many survivors approach the criminal justice system they are often in great need of support, empowerment, and protection. A failure to meet
these needs when survivors come forward can thereby have a detrimental effect on their long-term safety and well-being.
Kaukinen (2004) studied survivors to understand how race influenced the justice seeking behavior of survivors. The study concluded that white women were more likely to seek help from the justice system and increasingly escalate their help seeking behavior further to gain attention and support than women in other racial categories who tended to be less vigorous and demanding in their search for help. While this reveals the urge of survivors to ask for help, one must examine systemic racism affecting responses of the justice system to calls for help from women across the racial spectrum as well as systemic inequalities that affect whether minority women are able or willing to rely on justice institutions.
In 2003, Wolf, Ly, Hobart and Kernic focused on understanding the factors that hindered women’s ability to seek support from the police. The researchers concluded that cultural and ethnic backgrounds limited the ability of the survivors to rely on the police for support. Of concern to some of the respondents was the fear of how the police will react to their complaints as well as uncertainties surrounding help-seeking from the police. In response to these difficulties, some countries such as Canada introduced pro-women legislations in the 1980s to protect and advance the rights of women in homes (Braaf, 2008; Douglas, 2008). In most provinces, including Saskatchewan, these policy reforms addressed the need for specialized police training in IPV- related matters, protocols to govern the collection of evidence, and a shift toward pro-arrest policies (Braaf, 2008; Meyer, 2011; Rollings & Taylor, 2009). The justice system, therefore, has a significant role in the way IPV is resisted.
However, systemic and racialized barriers remain prevalent in justice systems in Canada. In particular, the police have been identified for continued violence and abuse against Indigenous
women in the context of ongoing settler colonialism. In Saskatchewan for example, Human Rights Watch (2017) has documented up to “64 alleged cases of violent abuse against Indigenous women at the hands of the police” (p.8). Actions such as the use of excessive force, sexual harassment, and questionable body and strip searches by male officers have been identified. Such continued violence creates ongoing barriers for Indigenous women to access or rely on formal forms of resistance to IPV.